


Not Good Enough

by Badassium1970



Category: Game Grumps
Genre: Angst, F/M, Jealousy, M/M, Polygrumps, ShipGrumps, rubberbrian
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-25
Updated: 2016-09-25
Packaged: 2018-08-17 05:33:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,425
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8132288
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Badassium1970/pseuds/Badassium1970
Summary: Ross is jealous that Arin gets so much credit for discovering NSP when that is far from the truth, but it's deeper than that.





	

Ross was starting to get a little irritated. Actually he had been irritated for a while and it was just getting harder to hide how he was feeling. With all the work he was doing both on and off the show, flying back to Australia to see his family, going to one or two conventions, he was exhausted which caused him to slip up, and of course it would be Brian who noticed first, or at least be the first to bring it up.

He tried to play it off as exhaustion but Brian saw through his lies, he could tell when Ross was angry and knew that if he didn’t get whatever it was bothering him off his chest the emotions would explode out of him later and that wouldn’t be pretty.

“It’s nothing, don’t worry about it.” Of all people Ross really didn’t want to tell Brian, it would be embarrassing, but Brian wouldn’t let it go. He trapped Ross in the recording room, stating that he wasn’t allowed to leave until he told him what was wrong.

Ross knew he had to give in, but what he was thinking about for days on end made him feel terrible, and he knew he shouldn’t feel that way. With the bands success he was hearing the same wrong story over and over again, by this point it should just be numb to him but the pain was still there.

“I just, why does Arin get everything? He’s getting all this praise every day for finding you guys and writing that e-mail, basically starting everything when I was the one who   
showed him you guys. He gets everything and I’m just fucking sick of it.” Ross let out a sigh, it felt a little bit better to get everything out until he saw Brian’s annoyed expression.

“Arin gets that praise because he worked so hard for it, he made us a kickass music video, he’s helped all of us so much. Without him you wouldn’t even be here, we’d have nothing.” Brian stormed off leaving Ross standing speechless as his body began to feel weak. He didn’t expect Brian to react like that. Ross could feel tears running down his cheeks, and his chest hurt. His breathing quickened and he knew he wouldn’t be leaving anytime soon. He relocked the door and sat on down low on the couch so no one could see his breakdown.

When he calmed down a bit he sent a text to Holly asking her to pick him up, stating that it was for personal reasons. Holly was the only other person who knew how he had been feeling. He felt bad skipping work, but he knew they had enough in the backlog that he could skip a week, they always try and keep a little bit ahead just in case so it wouldn’t be too big a deal. Plus, he was meant to be recording with Barry and Brian, and he really didn’t want to be around Brian right now. The two of them could record whatever game they’d decided on if they wanted.

Holly knew that something had to be wrong and she could guess what it was. The others were surprised to see her, wondering if she had booked to record today and they had just forgotten. She explained that something personal had happened that she didn’t want to talk about and that she needed Ross to come home. Everyone was very sympathetic, but Brian was suspicious, not that he said anything, but as he left Ross saw the way he was looking at him.

Holly decided not to bring anything up until they got home. She got him something to drink and eat, knowing from the way he looked when she picked him up that he had probably had a panic attack or at least something close to, she’d seen him go through that before when really stressed. He would need something to help regain strength.

“So, what happened?”

Ross told her how Brian reacted to how he felt. Holly felt herself getting annoyed. Yes, maybe how Ross felt about everything was a little irrational but that didn’t mean it wasn’t relevant and shouldn’t be dismissed as him just being selfish.

The real problem was that Brian had re-opened a wound that Ross had been trying to ignore for years now. When Ross sent that e-mail to help with NSP’s music video and got rejected he felt pretty shitty, especially when soon after Arin got accepted by the band. He felt as if his own work wasn’t good enough, and put a lot of time into improving everything about his animation, to the point where it was tearing him apart. Ross would watch Arin’s animations for hours to see what he could do better, to see what people liked more about Arin’s work than his own. It hurt to think that Arin was superior to him. Of course on the outside Ross acted as if he was happy for Arin, and honestly he was but at the same time there was some resentment there, not only towards Arin, but towards Dan and Brian as well. With Dan it went away pretty quickly, he was just so nice right from the start that Ross couldn’t be mad for long. With Arin it was slightly easier since when they were younger he was mean to Ross, and Ross still had a little baggage from that which he never dealt with. Then there was Brian, and that’s where for a long while Ross had no problem resenting him.

Since Brian moved to England Ross didn’t see him much so he could resent the man as they weren’t close. It was when he moved to L.A. and joined the show that Ross had problems, in fact he had a much bigger problem. He had totally fallen for Brian. When he realised he told Holly, and she was okay with it, as long as he still loved her too, and never lied about loving her. If he’s feeling for her went away, then he had to tell her as soon as he knew. Ross knew he could never not love her, without her he’d be lost, but he also loved Brian, and that was scary, but he could bottle up those feelings, Brian didn’t ever need to know.

Holly listened to Ross as he told her how he felt, in all honesty she didn’t know that it was this bad, yes she knew that Ross was jealous of Arin and that he had a crush on Brian but she didn’t know how deep the wounds were. She felt terrible that she hadn’t noticed sooner that he was at breaking point.

She made him relax for the rest of the day, not allowing him to do any work, he had been working himself to death with his animation and now she understood part of the reason he worked so hard. Holly reminded him that he had made a video for Starbomb, and although on the outside he acted as if that was a good point in his head he thought it was just Brian and Dan taking pity on him since they rejected him.

That night Ross laid awake, tears spilling from his eyes as Holly slept soundlessly, thinking that he was feeling better. Ross was a surprisingly good actor when he wanted to be.  
Brian was right. Without Arin he wouldn’t have anything. Arin kick-started everything, without him Ross wouldn’t have the amazing job he did. Would he even be working on a cartoon show if it weren’t for Arin? That was debatable but the real thing on Ross’s mind was that Brian obviously didn’t think he was good enough, he still thought that after all these years.

The next day Holly had to go out, it would only be for a few hours to help Jared film some Pokémon Go for his channel and some would go on hers as well making life easier for her, but she felt bad leaving Ross when he was vulnerable. She told him not to work himself too hard, knowing that he was going to anyway and she would just have to hope it wasn’t as bad as she thought it would be.

It was worse than she thought. She came back to Ross hunched over his drawing tablet, tears staining his cheeks. When looking at his open tabs there was a load of Arin’s work that was on YouTube and Newgrounds, as well as his own work. Holly tried to calm him down, but nothing really worked. She knew what she needed to do. Before she left again, claiming that Jared had messaged her and needed some help due to faulty footage, Holly made sure there was food and drink for Ross, that she really hoped he would eat, she also wrapped a blanket around him, gaining little reaction. It hurt to see someone she loved so much like this.

Holly drove to the Grump Space, knowing that Brian would probably be there, which luckily he was. Dan and Arin were also there, and it seemed like they were working. She felt a little rude interrupting but something much more important was going on. Arin and Dan seemed pretty surprised to see her, and checked to see if she was okay, to first be met with confusion but then Holly remembered that she had said something personal was going on.

“Yeah, everything should hopefully be okay. Um, anyway, I need to talk to Brian for a minute.” Holly made sure to subtly hint that she needed to talk to him alone and luckily they both got that and went into the recording room. 

“You know Ross is really upset right?”

Brian nodded, when Ross left he’d suspected that maybe he had gone a bit too far after Ross had told him what was upsetting him. Last night he was thinking about it and felt terrible, knowing that there must be something deeper than just jealousy.

“Go talk to him, please. I hate seeing him like this.” Holly sighed as she thought back to when she saw him this morning.

“I will.”

“Now.” Holly insisted, it was better that this get sorted now before Ross worked himself to death, or at least illness.

“Dan picked me up, I don’t have a ride. Plus, we’ve got work to do.”

Holly glared at the older man, she wasn’t letting him put this off. Reaching into her pocket she took out her car keys as well as her house keys, handing them to Brian.

“Take my car, I’ll tell Dan and Arin something important happened, they’ll understand.”

Brian knew that was Holly was right but he was nervous. He hated hurting someone he cared about, and he loved Ross a lot and regretted getting so annoyed at him. Holly wasn’t going to let him get away with leaving seeing Ross for a while though so he left with no arguments.

When he pulled up at the house Brian was nervous, scared to see the state that Ross was in, but honestly he was more afraid of Holly. He opened the door to their house feeling as if he shouldn’t be there. He made his way to Ross’s office, which he had only been in a few times while he was working on the music video for Starbomb. Thinking about it when Brian was around him Ross had been working really hard, to a point where Brian was afraid but everyone told him that was just how Ross got like that when working but Brian wondered if there was a deeper meaning to that. Judging by what Ross looked like right now, there was.

“Ross?” Brian quietly made himself known, causing Ross to jump and let out a little noise of surprise before trying to bury his face to hide that he was crying, but really he just made it more obvious. Brian pulled up a chair from the other side of the room and sat next to Ross, gently rubbing his back to try and sooth him. The kind gesture resulted in Ross sobbing openly, no longer able to even try and hide it.

“It’s okay,” Brian refrained from using any pet names, even though he wanted to so badly.

Ross continued crying, full on sobbing as Brian tried to comfort him but he wasn’t sure if he was just making things worse.

“I’m sorry,” Ross cried out between sobs.

“Don’t apologize, I shouldn’t have said that to you.” Brian embraced Ross in a hug, letting Ross sob all over his shoulder. Brian didn’t mind though, he had caused this, well he’d caused Ross to break, whatever was going on in his mind was a lot deeper and Brian knew that.

Brian waited for Ross to calm down before asking questions, leading him to the living room so he could sit comfortably or lie down if he needed to. When Brian went to save Ross’s work the younger man stopped him.

“Don’t worry about it, it’s crap anyway.”

Brian saved anyway, knowing that Ross was being way too hard on himself, and even if it was even a fraction of how bad Ross thought it was then Ross could redo it and delete his work from today, at least that meant Ross had something he could work with.

Brian walked Ross to the living room, guiding him as he was having a bit of trouble walking, and sat him down on the couch.

“So, do you want to talk about things?” Brian really wasn’t that great at being comforting, and he felt bad that the only reason why he was here was because of Holly, not that he didn’t feel terrible that he had gotten angry at Ross without thinking but he wouldn’t have thought of seeing how he was until Ross was back at the office if Holly hadn’t told him.  
Ross knew that the best thing to do was tell Brian and finally get things off his chest, maybe he should have told Arin right from the start, then things wouldn’t have escalated this far. It was just so hard to admit that he was jealous, that he didn’t feel good enough. Why should he burden his friends with his problems? They didn’t need to worry about him.

“I… I already told you,” Ross stuttered. The room felt too hot, he could feel himself sweating and he was desperately trying not to shake.

“So you’re jealous of Arin, but it’s more than that isn’t it?” Brian felt bad pushing Ross like this, the younger man looked so uncomfortable, but he knew Ross needed to get this out, especially since it seemed he’d been bottling everything up for close to eight years.

Ross closed his eyes, trying to keep the tears at bay. His body started to shake and he clenched his fists, his nails digging into his flesh, causing a small amount of pain. Brian reached out and held his hands, stopping Ross from hurting himself.

“I’m not good enough, I never have been.” Ross believed that, he could no longer distract himself from that fact. Fans may believe in him but it wasn’t true and he just had to accept that.

“Ross, look at me.”

Brian’s tone was serious, almost angry, but there were hints of fear and desperation. As much as Ross didn’t want to, he complied to Brian’s demand.

When his eyes opened they were glossy with tears, and rimmed red, but still just as blue as ever. Brian had always thought they were beautiful, and he hated seeing Ross’s eyes taking so much abuse.

“You are good enough, you’re more than good enough, you’re fucking amazing Ross,” Brian could have carried on for a lifetime, but he was afraid that those three words would escape from his lips and the backlash may be something the pair would never recover from.

“I’ve never been good enough for you,” Ross whispered.

Brian’s eyes widened and his chest hurt. He never knew that rejecting Ross all those years ago would have led to this. It was all his fault and he couldn’t even say that he would go back and change his decision because if he did things could have gone terribly and the band might have ended.

“Ross, that is in no way true. Ever since I’ve met you all you’ve done is amaze me. Your skills are amazing, and I’m sorry I didn’t see them at the time, but I see them now. Anyway, my opinion shouldn’t matter, if you’re proud of your work that should be enough. I know it’s hard to get into that mindset but please just have faith in yourself.”

Brian didn’t understand why Ross cared so much about his opinion since he didn’t know the first thing about animation, but he understood what rejection felt like.

“I’ll, it’s hard, I just feel so worthless and that nothings good enough… I wish… sometimes I just wish I…” Ross’s lips trembled, but Brian understood.

“Was Arin?”

Ross nodded, breaking down in tears again, and Brian hugged him, trying to calm him again. Brian could relate to that, sometimes he wished he was more like Danny, and got jealous of how much people always spoke about him, sent him more fan art. It hurt sometimes but a higher level of fame would make his life harder and although he’d embrace that he was grateful for what he had, but some days it got hard.

“Stop comparing yourself to Arin, you’re two completely different people with completely different styles, plus Arin doesn’t even animate anymore and if he did, he’s told me that you taught him a lot.”

Ross wanted to agree, but he didn’t think he’d been able to. It had been so many years.

“I know it’s tough, just promise me that when you feel bad you’ll come to me, or tell Holly, anyone. Arin isn’t going to get mad at you or make fun of you, no one at the office will.”  
Ross agreed to that, he didn’t want to feel this way anymore, it was draining and he often got really ill whenever he got this way, putting him out of commission which just made him feel worse.

Speaking of drained, that was exactly how Ross felt right now, causing him to let out a massive yawn which passed on to Brian.

“I think you should get some rest.” Brian could see the bags under Ross’s eyes now that some of the redness from crying had lightened up. Ross nodded, and maybe it was tiredness or the fact that a great deal of weight had been lifted of his chest, but he felt a lot more confident.

“I… I don’t want to be alone,” Ross admitted, a blush appearing on his cheeks. Brian looked surprised, but didn’t let himself hope that Ross implying what he thought he was implying.

“Do you want me to call Holly?”

“I… Yes, but can you stay with me until she gets here?”

Brian agreed, smiling at Ross who looked adorable in hi half asleep state. Brian called Holly informing her that things had gone well. Holly congratulated him before stating she was running some errands, which Brian doubted, and that she’d be gone for another half an hour at least. She also wished Brian good luck and that little bit of hope sparked in Brian’s heart again.

When he went into the bedroom Ross was already laying in the bed, his eyes hooded due to exhaustion but he had been waiting for Brian, who informed him that Holly would be a while.

Brian removed his jeans, feeling slightly flustered, but Ross had done the same, whether that made things more or less awkward Brian was unsure, but when Ross cuddled up to him it no longer mattered.

“I really like you,” Ross mumbled, his voice full of sleep and he was totally going to blame his exhaustion if Brian reacted negatively to this, and tell Holly how wrong she was when she got back since she always insisted that Brian shared his feelings.

“I feel the same way Ross.” Brian truly did, and maybe he wouldn’t change anything, and some people would say he was horrible for that considering the thoughts Ross had been dealing with for all these years, but if he never rejected Ross’s proposal then they might not be here now, and Brian liked where they were.


End file.
